TARGETED PALINDROMES I to K (the showcase continues)

Editors' Note: Fans of palindromes might note that a lengthy series of posts entitled "Submitted Palindromes" has disappeared from this blog. They might be delighted to disover that this change is only administrative -- the 'missing' blogposts, 59 in all, have been transferred to "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", and can be found HERE.

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To resume the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

 

The Adventures of Leslie Moore, Linguist -- SUFFIXES

CURRENT CONTENTS

meanINGFULLY

helpFULLY

feckLESSNESS

categorICALLY

atoneLESSNESS

loveLINESS

gallINGLY

loneLINESS

youthFULNESS

(linguistICALLY  -- 4 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

Authors' Note: The Yiddish loanword bupkes literally means "beans", but is figuratively applied to items or concepts that are worthless.

Authors' Note: For more than a decade, the author of this verse has routinely taken a bedtime dose of alginate, a seaweed-derived product useful as an adjunct in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux.

Authors' Note: Leslie Moore is an academic linguist who has acted as an inspirational muse in almost a dozen of Giorgio's recent verses. Her personal lifestyle choice of rejecting the world of IT has gotten her into some difficulty, bringing accusations from her colleagues of incompetence.

Authors' Note:  Until this minute, Giorgio had apparently not even heard of Leslie's cousin Vic.

Authors' Note: Readers are reminded of the key role of the word sorry in the Canadian vocabulary.

Authors' Note: The dove is often used a symbol of peace or pacifism; contrarily, the hawk is used as a symbol of those with a propensity for war or violence.

"An iron fist (hand) in a velvet glove" is a well-known idiom portraying hawks who hide behind a more dove-like appearance or demeanour.

(Note that the four stanzas of this "brief saga" can be found in more readily legible format on the blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"; click HERE.) 

Editors' Note: Leslie has asked us to point our readers to  earlier verses contributed by one of her mentors, "clannishlessness" and "capaciousness".

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As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

The Impossible Dream: CAPTAIN R's RHOTIC MISSION

CURRENT CONTENTS 

Quixotic Dream
Non-rhotic vs Rhotic Speech 
Rhotic-Poet School
Intrusive Rs

 

Authors' Note: "Captain R" is a muse who appears episodically in the ' dreams of certain Canadian poets. R. is the authors' abbreviation for rhotic (ROA-tik) dialects in English, i.e. those that honour R-sounds as they are written. The Captain, who clearly has been influenced by the nearby letter "q" as in Don Quixote, and wears a tight-fitting shirt emblazoned with a large "R", has inspired a quest that culminated in the other verses in this collection. 

Quixotic, BTW, is used to describe ideas and actions that are foolishly impractical and romantic.

Authors' Note: The above verse represents a companion piece to the following one, rhotic-poet school  ('articulate' as it originally appeared on OEDILF) ; the author is pleased to declare that both submissions can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent.

Readers who find use of the word "rhoticity" pedantic, are advised to substitute "rotisserie".

Authors' Note:

otic: pertaining to the ear, or to hearing, as in the medical specialty oto-laryngology (ENT)

The author is pleased to explain that this verse can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent. In fact, it is highly recommended that each reader try to recite it aloud both ways.

Poor, sure, more is a trio of words often used for rhyming in poetic or song-lyric lines (a random example: I'd like to ensure / That our love will bring more). Non-rhotic speakers apparently find that these words rhyme as indicated in the phonetic renderings paw, shaw, maw. To rhotic ears, however, the partial rhyming of 'sure' and 'more' sounds as amateurish as pairing 'time' and 'fine'.

With occasional exceptions, native-born and -schooled Canadians using English are rhotic speakers, their Rs being fully sounded, even after vowels. However, we have welcomed to our shores large numbers of immigrants from around the globe who have brought their non-rhotic dialects. Their speech pattern is rendered roughly by changing all the relevant Rs to Hs, e.g. 'hard' == > 'hahd'; 'exhort == > 'exhoht'

Apparently, expert linguists have established that English was spoken only rhotically until the time of Shakespeare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the use of non-rhotic speech, with the loss of 'post-vocalic R', spread until it became the dominant speech pattern in most of England, the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, Australia and several other English colonies.

Authors' Note:

celler (CHEH-ler): a large stringed instrument, imaginatively pronounced with an intrusive R; often accompanied by the pianeR, and, in the orchestreR, by the violeR, oboeR, tubeR, and piccoleR

Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".

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As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

"A VERY STABLE GENIUS": poetic tribute and more funky anagrams

A follow-up to material posted originally on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", with the original list of almost 100 anagrams summarized initially HERE. Additional funky anagrams sorted by topic were subsequently posted HERE. And what you have here today is the final emanation ...

First, a few reminders:

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: An important book describing the administration of the White House under the forty-fifth President  was released for publication. The book, entitled "A Very Stable Genius", is the result of extensive reporting by two Pulitzer-prize winning journalists. The phrase used for the title derives from a description by the President himself, estimating his own mental abilities.

ANAGRAMS are phrases composed by rearrangement of the 17 letters of the original.
In this case, the 17 letters of each new phrase must include:


     E E E
     A A 
     S S
     V R Y T B L G N I U. 
  
  The meaning of the resultant new phrases are, not surprisingly, sometimes in keeping with the tone suggested by the original title, but are often directly in opposition, and may even fly off and explore new tangents. They are best imagined, in this case, as further utterances by the book’s protagonist, as asides by the authors, or as comments by startled readers. 
 The editors have concocted innumerable possibilities, and selected almost 100 of the most intriguing anagrams for your enjoyment. Our experience suggests that the phrase “A VERY STABLE GENIUS” is a unique mother-lode for such wordplay; there are thousands of results, but most defy logical interpretation.

In the follow-up post, we added to the list more than 100 additional funky anagrams, all involving the same combination of letters as the original book title. And with the present effort, we give our final gasp to this endeavour (after displaying a total of 300 or so anagrammatic variations)!

And now, our poetic tribute:

Finally, our ultimate anagrammatic emanations on this topic:

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As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.